Northampton Country Club

The Lehigh Valley got its first taste of golf in 1899. What is today the Northampton Country Club traces its origin to the Easton Golf Players Club, which was chartered that year. James S. Roudenbourgh was the club’s first president. The other officers were W.S. Kirkpatrick, vice president; Robert K. Buchanan, secretary; and John Bacon, treasurer. A board of managers consisting of Henry McKenn, John Eyerman, and W.O. Hay was also named at this time.

The male membership was limited to 100, but there was no restriction on the number of ladies. The admission fee was $5. A golf course was laid out on the Hay estate, fronting on North Fourteenth Street, in Easton. Here the club had a two-room house, where clothes could be changed and simple refreshments enjoyed after the game. It was in 1911 that Northampton began the acquisition of its present property, now totaling 190 acres and known as "The Dry Lands."

Northampton’s second clubhouse, at William Penn Highway and Chipman Road, in the late 1930s

The first clubhouse here was a farmhouse located at the northwest corner of William Penn Highway and Chipman Road. Members were drawn not only from Easton but from Bethlehem and other parts of the county. The golf course, a nine-hole layout in 1912, was extended to 18 holes in 1914. And in 1930 a major expansion of the clubhouse was completed (ballroom, new men’s locker room, new kitchen), and the golf course was redesigned and rebuilt.